The Bank of England has revealed that the total number of loan approvals for house purchase was 71,357 in March, broadly in line with the average over the previous six months.
The number of approvals for remortgaging was 41,347, compared to the average of 40,755 over the previous six months. The number of approvals for other purposes was 12,875, compared to the average of 12,267 over the previous six months.
Richard Pike, Phoebus Software’s sales and marketing director, said: “The mortgage activity in March was, as expected, as buoyant as it has been over the past six months. The stamp duty changes for second homes had the inevitable effect, with many pushing to get completions through before the April deadline. The ultimate goal in making these changes of course was to enable more first-time-buyers to purchase, and this already seems to be happening.
“The First Time Buyer tracker (from Your Move and Reeds Rains) this morning shows an increase of almost 50% more first-time-buyer activity in March compared to February. So perhaps the increase we saw in March wasn’t only down to the ‘surge’ to complete after all.
“There has been much talk about economic uncertainty since the EU referendum was announced. Yesterday two reports stated that annual rate of house price growth dipped in the last month, which may be the first sign that things are changing, but to date there has been little sign that consumer confidence is waning.”